Live music - Cat Power

Olympia, Dublin

In Facebook parlance, Chan Marshall and Dublin have a ‘complicated’ relationship. In 2003, Marshall — Cat Power is her stage name — gave a car crash performance at Whelan’s. Dishevelled and incoherent, she stumbled through a series of increasingly drowsy anecdotes and half-remembered songs, her mutterings accompanied by a rising volley of boos. It was equal parts horrifying and fascinating, a meltdown that quickly assumed quasi-mythic status among concert-goers.

A decade later Marshall is back, determined, by the looks of things, to make amends (artist and audience alike appear to have glossed over a dreary turn at Tripod in 2007). She more or less pulls it off though it’s unsteady going at times. Twenty minutes in, the 42 year old Georgia, USA native is on her feet, hefting a monitor which she complains is blocking the view of some uber-fans in the front row. Later, at a piano, she breaks off mid-song, protesting the beauty of the venue — awestruck by the Olympia’s creaky venerability; it is distracting. You worry that she might spin off the track at any moment.

The singer has a history of emotional instability: in 2006 she actually had a full-fledged breakdown and was admitted to a Florida psychiatric unit.

There followed several lost years in which she battled alcoholism and complained of feeling suicidal. However, she has lately pulled herself together and, in 2012, delivered perhaps her finest collection yet, the seismic Sun.

Curiously, she is assiduous in side-stepping that record this evening. Rather than bask in its glow, she looks back at earlier accomplishments. From 2002’s You Are Free, the trembling ‘I Don’t Blame You’ spins a tale of romantic betrayal and forgiveness.

Marshall visibly wrestles demons on stage. But, after so much heartbreak, she seems to have seized control of her life and career. For those with memories of her 2003 meltdown, to see her come out the other side is hugely heartening. Marshall is a kook and an enigma. But above all she is a survivor.